Installation -Watershed Moments

Rolling the tree to the Dana building

Communitree out of car, ready to roll into building.

 Moving the Communitree sculpture was an adventure.  It had been stored in a basement which was once a paper mill - and the egress was a steep ramp with doors that were significantly lower than the height of the piece.  Somehow we got it out having lowered the branches - the tree is now a conifer having previously been deciduous!  I drive a Subaru Forester and we put down the seats and somehow got most of the sculpture in - several feet hung out the back -the green thing at the top is the flag we used to be vaguely traffic compliant when I drove across town with the hatch tied mostly closed.  The elevator was not as tall as the tree either (gallery not at ground level of course) so we somehow diagonally got the piece in.  This all brings back painful memories of transporting large pieces on buses in art school....and reminds me why I generally size my work based on the largest size I can conveniently fit in my car!.

Attaching line to the bracket with Dave's help

Installing a monotype and an installation view of 4 of the 5 monotypes

 Between Sara Adlerstein (gallery director) and Dave - the SNRE's photographer - whose last name I need to get - I had  a lot of kind and competent help installing.  Never a given and much appreciated!

Communitree in Dana commons

For a relatively small show - 5 large monotypes and one large sculpture - this show was more challenging to install than some, largely because of the difficulty of moving the sculpture.  The Communitree is a piece that was done last summer as a collaborative piece funded by Annarbor.com and the Street Art Fair.  Many hundreds of people were involved in building it over about a week during the summer.  Now it will continue to grow and evolve at the School of Natural Resources.

The opening for this show is tomorrow - Feb 16 at 4pm.  Gallery director Sara Adlerstein and I will both be speaking about the gallery - this is the inaugural show for the Art & the Environment Gallery at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment - and about the work in particular.